A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. – Walter Bagehot
Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other mens thoughts, to speak other mens words, to follow other mens habits. – Walter Bagehot
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. – Walter Bagehot
Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them. – Walter Bagehot
The first purpose of clothes… was not warmth or decency, but ornament…. Among wild people, we find tattooing and painting even prior to clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration; as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries. – Thomas Carlyle